The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-08-12
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
The Heavenly Existence Not a One
of Id1eness.
Occupations Many and Varied I'm the
Celestial World Upon the Earth
"A Beautiful Word Picture
of the Future.


text being:
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in
-he fourth month, in the fifth day of the month,
as was among the captives by the river of
Chebar, that the Heavens were opened.-Eze-
lIiel l.. 1.
Ezekiel, with others, had been ex-
patriated, and while in foreign slavery
was standing on the banks of the royal
canal which he and other serfs had been
condemned to dig by the order of Nebu-
chadnezzar-this royal canal, in the text
called the river of Chebar; the illustrious
exile had visions of Heaven. Indeed, it is
almost always so that the brightest visions
of Heaven come not to those who are on
mountain top of prosperity, but to some
John on desOlate Patmos, or to some Paul
in Mamertime dungeon, or to some Ezekiel
standing on the banks of a ditch he had
been compelled to dig-yea, to the weary,
to the heart-brOken, to those whom sorrow
has banished.
The text is very particular to give us the
exact time of the vision. 1t was in the
thirtieth year, and in the fourth month,
and in the fifth day of the month. So you
have had visions of earth you shall
never forget. You remember the
year, you remember the month,
you remember the day, you remember the
hour. Why may not we have some such
vision this morning, and it be in the sixth
month and in the fourth day of the month.
The question is often silently asked
though perhaps never audibly propounded:
'What are our departed Christian friends
doing nOw?" The question is more easily
answered than you perhaps might suppose.
Though there has come no recent intelli-
gence from the heavenly city, and we seem
dependent upon the story of eighteen CEN
turies ago, still l think we may from
strongest inferences decide what are the
present occupations of our transferred
kinsfolk.
After God has made a nature he never
eradicates the chief characteristics OF it's
temperament. You never knew a man
phIegmatic in temperament to become
Sanguine in temperament. You never
knew man sanguine in temperament to
become phlegmatic in temperament. Con-
version plants new principles in the soul,
but Paul and John are just as different
from each other after conversion as they
were different from each other before con-
version. If conversion does not eradicate
the prominent characteristics of the tenn
permanent neither will death eradicate
them.
You have, then, only by a sum in sub
traction and a sum in addition to dec de
what are the employments of your de-
parted friends in the better world. You
are to subtract from them all earthly
grossness and add all earthly goodness,
and then you are to come to the conclusion
that they are doing now in Heaven what
in their best moments they did on earth,
The reason that so many people never start
for Heaven is because they could not stand
it if they got there if it should turn out to
be the rigid and formal place some people
photograph it.
We like to come to church, but we
would not want to stay here to next Christ
mas. We like to hear the Hallelujah Chorus,
but we would not want to hear it all the
time for fifty centuries. It might be on
some great occasion it would be possibly
comfortable to wear a crown of gold
weighing several pounds, but it would be
an affiiction to wear such crown forever.
In other words, we run the descriptions
of Heaven into the ground while we make
that which was intended as especial and
celebrative to be the exclusive employment
of the Heaven. You might as well, if
asked to describe the habits of American
society, describe a Decoration Day or a
Fourth of July, or an autumnal Thanksgiv-
ing, as though it were all the time that
way.
am not going to speculate in regard to
the future world, but / must, by inevitable
laws of inference and deduction and COM
mon sense, conclude that in Heaven we will
be Just as different from each other as we
are now different, an hence that there
will be at least many different employ
ments in the celestial world as there are
empIoyments here. Christ is to be the great
love, the great joy, the great rapture, the
great worship of Heaven; but will that
abolish employment? No more than loves
on earth-paternal, fill !, fraternal, con-
jugal love-abolish earthly occupation.
In the first place, remark that all those
of our departed Christian friends who on
earth found great joy in the fine arts are
now indulging their tastes in the same di-
rection. On earth they had their gladdest
pleasures amid pictures and statuary, and
in the study of the laws of light and shade
and perspective. Have you any idea that
that affiueuce of faculty at death collapsed
and perished? Why so, when there is
more for them to look at, and they have
keener appreciation of the beautiful, and
they stand amid the very looms where the
sunsets and the rainbOws and the spring
mornings are woven?
Are you so obtuse as to suppose that be-
cause the painter drops his easel and the
sculptor his chisel and the engraver his
knife, that, therefore, that taste, which he
was enlarging and intensifying for forty
or fifty years, is entirely Obliterated?
These artists, or these friends of art, on
imperfect brain and with frail hand. Now
they have carried their art into larger
liberties and into wider circumference.
They are at their old business yet, but
without the fatigues, without the limita-
tions. without the hindrances of the ter
restrial studio.
Raphael could now improve upon his
masterpiece Of Michael, the archangel,
now that he has seen him, and could i'm
prove upon his masterpiece OF the Holy
Family, now that he has visited them.
Michael Angelo could better present the
1 Last judgment after he has seen its flash
and heard the rumbling battering-rams OF
its thunder. Exquisite colors here, grace
full lines here, powerful chiaroscuro here;
but / am persuaded that the grander stu
dios and the brighter galleries are higher
up by the winding marble stairs of the sep
ulcher, and that Turner, and Holman, and
I Hunt, and Rembrandt, and Titan, and
Paul Veronese, If they exercised saving
faith in the Christ whom they portrayed
upon the canvas, are painters yet, but
/ their strength of faculty multiplied ten
4 thousand fold. The reason that God TOOK
away their eye, and their hand, and their
4 brain, was that he might give them some
! thing more timber, more wieldy, more skill
! full, more multiplitant.
Do not, therefore, be melancholy among
/ the tapestries, the bric-a-brac, and the
/ embroideries, and the water colors. and the
works of art which your departed friends
/ used to admire. Do not say: Il am sorry
/ they had to leave all these things" Rather
say: 81 am glad they have gone up to
higher artistic opportunity and apprecia-
! ton" Our friends who found so much JOY
/ in the fine arts on earth are now luxuriat-
| ing in Louvres and Luxembourgs celestial
] remark again, that all our departed
/ Christian friends who in this world were